Why can’t we just take our medicine?

Share via

Patients who refuse to take their medication are wasting millions of NHS pounds every year

New research suggests that the NHS spends close to £200 million a year on cholesterol-lowering statins for people who then fail to take them properly. This must be galling for a Chancellor faced with the herculean task of reducing the national debt.

And this study, presented at the British Pharmaceutical Conference in Manchester last week, represents the tip of a much larger iceberg. Other research suggests that though people on statins may be better at taking their medication than some others, overall it is thought that four out of ten don’t take their medicines regularly enough to derive any benefit.